


Tranchée

by Carrogath



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Post-Talon Widowmaker | Amélie Lacroix, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 07:50:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12076746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrogath/pseuds/Carrogath
Summary: Amélie cuts a bad habit. Sombra won't cut it out.





	Tranchée

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShinyMilotics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinyMilotics/gifts).



It has been three days.

Three days since she left Annecy, three days since Sombra smuggled her into the Underworld, three days living as a fugitive from Talon. Three days living in a squalid apartment beneath the London subway, living off of canned meats and dry crackers like some starving refugee, and no matter how hard she tries to scrub her skin free of the filth that seems to infest every corner of this place, she cannot rid herself of the feeling that she has been permanently defiled.

The bathroom is claustrophobia-inducing. The floor tiles are about one hundred years out of date, the walls are painted some pitiful shade of brown presuming itself to be off-white, and the shower head rattles from the pressure bursting from the pipes. A single thin, dark line runs across her right wrist, shallow and halfhearted, and she can’t bring herself to press the blade down any further. Instead, she watches the water drip off her nose and pool with her blood onto the bathroom floor, swirling into the drain in a weak melange.

Nothing about the situation comes to her as a surprise—she had been expecting something like this to happen for months now, and though Sombra had not been honest with her about the nature of this excursion, she was never one to be explicit about her intentions. Now they are here, and now they are on the run, and all of this, Sombra will argue, because she wanted it. She sits alone, in the bathroom, fearful of retribution to the point that she can’t even cut herself for relief, because she wanted it. She presses a hand over the exposed flesh of her wound.

It hurts.

She turns off the shower after letting it run for a few more minutes, dries herself off and bandages her wound and sits on the thin mattress that creaks under her weight. Her hair drips down her back. There are discolored plastic counters under the cupboards, a single burner next to the kitchen sink, an ancient green refrigerator that might have been salvaged from the junkyard, and a rickety wooden table that now hosts one of Sombra’s laptops. Wires snake around the table and congregate against the wall, lashed together against the outlets. Sombra promised that she would be safe here, and as much as she appreciates the sentiment, it isn’t nearly as reassuring as the loaded rifle resting by the front door.

She is afraid, and she is realizing more with every passing day the terror that comes with being both alive and aware enough to understand what that means. Sombra’s plans are tentative at best; she has seen them fail before, and when they do they fail spectacularly. Unbound from Talon’s conditioning, Amélie is far less of a threat than she ever was as Widowmaker, far more vulnerable to pain and loss and hurt and fear, and far less prideful. She knows why they are here. She knows why they managed to escape. Amélie is no fool.

Sombra shouldn’t be alive. By all accounts, her plan should have never succeeded. Amélie should have killed Sombra, and she could have killed Sombra a thousand times over. She could have reported her to their superiors. She could have exposed Sombra’s plans to everyone. She could have lured her into her bedroom and murdered her in her sleep. She could have done any number of things, knowing how self-interested Sombra was, how much of a threat she posed to Talon—and in doing so, she could have taken pride in a job well done. She could have stayed Widowmaker. She might have even been happier that way.

Instead, the mark Sombra has left on her is irreversibly deep, and no matter how close to the bone she cuts, she knows that nothing will ever hurt more.

It’s no sooner that the thought crosses her mind that Sombra enters holding a plastic bag. “Hey, spider.” She smiles as she crosses the threshold, flicks a nervous glance toward Amélie, and sets the bag down on the counter. “I brought you some dinner—know how hard is to tell the time of day down here but it’s like… dark outside already.” She looks at her. “You…” Her eyes drop from Amélie’s face down to her bandaged wrist. “You cut yourself.” Worry creases her brow. “I thought you…”

Amélie breaks eye contact.

She sighs and rubs the back of her neck. “I’m not sure if you can eat any of that, but take a look. I already ate, so you can have all of it if you want.” Then she takes a seat at the table and boots up her laptop.

Minutes pass in silence, the seconds mounting until they’re nigh unbearable and she rises and takes a look through the plastic bag. Nothing appeals to her admittedly limited appetite. She sits back on the bed. There is a remote lying on the duvet and a TV against the opposite wall. She turns it on. The news is not about how two of Talon’s agents mysteriously vanished, but rather, about a woman who lost her pet dog under the floorboards of her house. The dog, a black-eared papillon, looks content as it rests in the woman’s arms. Sombra’s keyboard clacks against the murmurings of the TV.

The London Underworld is a multilayered maze outside of the apartment complex. Even Talon would have a hard time finding them down here. The scene would look oddly domestic to an outsider—Sombra working on her laptop, Amélie trying and failing to occupy herself with the television screen. There’s no sense of urgency, and save for the gun by the door and the lamentable condition of the furnishings, there’s no sense that anything is even wrong.

Amélie covers her wrist with her hand. Sombra is focused on her work, which is more a result of sheer concentration than obliviousness to the state of Amélie’s wrist. Lines of code scroll across her computer screen, hypnotic in their uniformity, though Amélie can tell by the way she hesitates that she’s still distracted.

Amélie turns off the TV. “It’s about the wound,” she says. “Isn’t it?”

Sombra’s hands go quiet.

“You thought I stopped hurting myself.”

“Can’t all be winners.” Sombra looks up at her from her seat. “I just thought you didn’t need to anymore.”

“It isn’t about need.”

“Then what’s it about, huh?” Her lips press into a thin line. “You do it for fun or something?”

“It helps,” she says, though her answer doesn’t appear to satisfy Sombra. ”When the pain can’t be expressed any other way, it helps.”

She shakes her head. “That is the shittiest form of therapy I have ever heard.” She stands up and takes Amélie’s wrist in her hands. “C’mon, lemme see.” Amélie allows her to undo the bandages and set them down on the table, and she holds the wound up to the fluorescent light. “Shallow today. And there’s only one.” She looks at her, raising an eyebrow. “Blade not sharp enough or something?”

Amélie yanks her hand out of Sombra’s grasp, baring her teeth. “Next time I will make it deeper for you.” She picks up the bandages and starts wrapping them around her wrist again.

“If you’re going to get all weird about it, then why do it? All you’re doing is hurting yourself. Like. Literally, even.”

She glares at her through the corner of her eye. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then explain.”

“I already did.”

“Do it in a way I’ll understand.” She looks hurt, and Amélie steps away until her calves meet the side of the bed. “You’re always like this. Minute I get you to open up, you snap right back shut. We’re in the Underworld. Talon’s gonna take days to find us, at least. If we’re gonna die together anyway I’d at least… I’d like a little closure.” She places a hand on the edge of the table. “You don’t like dealing with your emotions, or whatever. I get it. But you can’t pull shit like this and expect to get away with it all the time.” Her grip on the table tightens. “I… I’m scared too, you know? I did all of this for you, and, and I have no idea if I’m even doing the right thing.” She looks away, distraught. “Fuck, I don’t even know if you _like_ me or not!”

Amélie bites the inside of her cheek, and sits down on the bed, wishing desperately that they had more space between them.

“I sacrificed everything,” says Sombra, “and I don’t even…” She covers her face with her hand. “Fuck.” She’s oddly quiet. “ _Puta_ …” She mutters to herself in unintelligible Spanish. A sniffle breaks the stream of murmurings, and Amélie feels herself stand up.

“Sombra?”

She holds a fist in front of her face. “What?” She lowers her hand. “What?” She’s crying. “You never seen someone cry before? All I did was fucking… throw away my hopes and dreams to save your frigid blue ass, _¡carajo, ni siquiera sé por qué lo hice!_ ” She turns away. “Thought I was gonna be your hero and we might just end up dead anyway.”

Amélie can’t remember the last time she saw Sombra cry, if she ever has. She places a hand on her shoulder.

Sombra glares up at her, red-faced and teary-eyed. “What? You think you’re going through a lot; well, I’m going through a lot too. Just instead of cutting myself I sit down and fucking cry.”

Her hand travels up Sombra’s neck to her cheek, and brushes away a tear there.

She scrunches her face. “Oh, God, not you too.”

“Shh.”

She knows why Sombra is crying. She knows what she should say—what Sombra wants to hear—but not how to say it, or whether she even wants to. Sombra wants recognition for her efforts. She wants emotional catharsis from the woman she presumed to have saved; she wants all the little reassurances and promises that she’s been telling Amélie for months; she wants affirmation that this entire affair wasn’t a mistake, that abandoning her aspirations at Talon was the right thing to do, that if nothing else she would have Amélie’s love and affection and that she wouldn’t need anything else if she had only that.

Maybe it really isn’t worth it. She has never presumed her life to be worth more than any other’s, and surely Sombra with all of her extensive information networks and computing knowledge would find someone or something of better value to pursue. Love is an emotion, one she has lived for many years without, and she has no doubt that Sombra would be able to recover from the loss. She has nothing to her name—anything she owns would have to be stolen back from Talon—and she isn’t sure how many of the modifications to her are reversible. Without support from Talon, she may not have much longer to live in the first place. To continue to shelter her without a means of modifying her body so that she is able to function and be seen in public without being immediately identified as Widowmaker almost seems a waste, given how little she may be able to contribute even after her body is restored to its former state.

“Sombra,” she says. “You’ve done enough.”

“Huh?” Sombra stares at her. “What do you mean?”

“For me. You’ve done enough for me.” She looks down. “You did what you said you would—you should be proud of that.”

“I…” She seems taken aback. “Well… But you’re not OK yet. We’re still trapped in this shitty apartment—we gotta run again soon, get you to Mexico ASAP, see if there’s some doctor who knows how to fix your body and make sure you don’t die after whatever Talon did to you…”

“It isn’t necessary.”

“But I _want_ to,” says Sombra. “You said so yourself. You’re still hurting. I…” She clutches Amélie’s shoulders. “You know why I’m doing this. I love you!”

“I can’t.” Amélie pulls away, backing up against the counter. She has never felt taller in her life.

“You’re scared. I get it. That’s OK. But we’ve come this far,” she says. “We’re not gonna run out of money; worst thing that could happen is if we both die and we’ve both looked death in the face so many times you should be used to it by now.”

“But Gérard—”

“Was in the past. You’re someone else now. I’ve seen it.” She balls her hand into a fist. “I know you. You’re Amélie. You’re scared and you’re hurt and you’re tired and you’re sad. You’re not the Widowmaker anymore. And, you know…” Sombra sighs and holds a hand to her face. “Maybe we shouldn’t have fucked, but I… Even if we don’t ever do it again, you know that’s not going to change the way I feel about you. So…” She takes a step toward Amélie, and then falters. “Ah, I guess,” she rubs the back of her neck, “I just wanted you to know that whatever you decide, I’ve got your back. It’s your life.” She looks up at Amélie, and makes eye contact. “Least I can do is let you choose what to do with it.”

Amélie’s fingers squeeze the edges of the counter. She feels cornered—she always has, a victim, a robot, a slave, a tool, a doll. What should feel like freedom, freedom to choose, freedom to do whatever she wishes with Sombra’s blessings, instead feels like a death knell, a portent of mortality, certain to strike as soon as she attempts to think for herself. The soles of her feet brush against the bottom drawers next to the sink.

She knows what she wants, but this godforsaken _—_

Their teeth nearly clack as their mouths press together, Amélie’s hand pushing up against the back of Sombra’s head, too forceful to be considered a kiss. It has been months, and Sombra kisses back as if it’s been forever. Her hands come up to run through Amélie’s hair, still damp, and memories flood back into Amélie’s mind, of nights spent struggling against her in penthouse suites and tick-infested hotel rooms, desperate to learn the curves of her body, desperate for some kind of human connection not predicated on her sniping abilities or mental conditioning or facile obedience to Talon’s bidding, mouths slick and skin unbearably warm, as though she could escape everything that was happening to her by shoving Sombra onto a mattress.

She hates the feel of the mattress beneath them, really; it’s thin, it’s noisy, it creaks as though it will snap under their combined weight, and though it supports them she fumbles anyway, loose-limbed as though her body doesn’t remember how to move anymore, despite her physical coordination as a dancer, her years of ballet training. Sombra eases her away as soon as they find themselves short of breath; below Amélie, she seems small, and Amélie isn’t certain she’s ever seen her that way.

“I—” Sombra begins, but she’s soon cut off.

“Shut up,” Amélie murmurs against her lips, “ _merde, tais toi, je ne peux plus le supporter,_ it is as if you have to make excuses for every single little thing that happens between us.” She shifts her knee between Sombra’s legs, though she’s hoping they won’t have sex here; the place is filthy, but Sombra tastes so good underneath her and she’s so angry for having held herself back for this long that she might not be able to wait anymore.

Sombra puts a hand over Amélie’s mouth and pushes her face away. “Amé,” she says, “you didn’t really answer my—”

“I want to fuck you.”

She grins. “Yeah, but…”

She sighs and sits up, folding her legs underneath her. “What.”

Sombra lies sprawled on the bed, splayed invitingly with her shirt pushed up past her ribs, and when she rolls on her side the mattress makes that godawful creaking noise again. “You know what I meant. I got you figured out a long time ago, girl. You can’t bury everything under sex, no matter how good you are.”

Amélie purses her lips, and then shifts and leans over her, looming to make herself look more menacing than she feels. “You want to know why we stopped, then?” she says finally.

Sombra nods to the bandages on her wrist. “Why you cut yourself. Even though you’re free.”

She snorts. “I’m hardly free in here.”

Sombra rolls onto her back. “ _Arañita_ , when I’m done with you, you won’t want to be anywhere else.”

She can’t help it. She cracks a grin. “Idiot.”

Sombra clucks her tongue and wags a finger at her. “You mean ‘ _idiota_.’”

“ _Chiante_.”

“ _Pesada_.”

“ _Casse-pieds._ ”

“ _Folle_.”

“ _Pénible—_ ah.” She cranes her neck. “‘ _Folle_?’”

“What can I say?” She wets her lips. “I’m crazy for you.”

Amélie’s hands ball into fists at Sombra’s sides. “I don’t know,” she says. “It isn’t safe outside. You’re right. You threw away everything for me.”

Sombra’s brow creases. “Like I said. Over-the-moon fucking _loca perdida_. Further gone than the _Voyager 1_.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “Thought it’d be nice to do something for someone else for a change.”

“You’re lying.”

Sombra smiles. “Try me.”

Time seems frozen inside this shitty little apartment, and whenever they are together, she realizes, she has always wanted it to stop. She pauses, and then bends down and presses a kiss into the curve of Sombra’s neck.

“I don’t know,” she says again. “I don’t know if you will be happy with me.”

“I am now.” Sombra’s voice vibrates against her lips. “Even though we’re stuck in a tiny box in a giant hole underground. Doesn’t seem so bad somehow.”

Amélie sits up again. She opens her mouth, and then hesitates.

Sombra rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on! Just say it. Reaper knows it; Tracer knows it; Akande knows it; hell I bet fucking _Ana_ knows it by now. Please.” She looks up at Amélie, imploring. “Just let me hear you say it. Just once. I’ll never ask you again.”

She leans down, and kisses the corner of Sombra’s mouth.

“ _Je t’aime_. I love you.”


End file.
